by Marie Carnay
A faint smile tugged at Damien’s lips. “So you’re not interested in changing your name?”
“Why would I?”
He traced a line over her ring finger on her left hand. “If we got married.”
Mia blinked. “Are you—”
The sound of the door opening made her pause.
Agent Duncan stepped in with a smile and an armful of paper and pens. “All right, so I’m here to take your statements.” He pulled the chair out and sat down. “Whenever you’re ready.”
24
MIA
Could a heart actually beat straight out of a chest? If it could, Mia’s was halfway there.
The female agent tucked the wire into Mia’s bra and she tried not to tremble.
“This is small enough that even if he pats you down, it’ll be hidden. Unless he takes your bra off, no one will know it’s there.”
“If that son of a bitch lays a finger on her—”
“He won’t.” Mia reached out and squeezed Damien’s arm. The past forty-eight hours had been a whirlwind.
First it was endless meetings and interviews and recounting all the sordid details of the past month. Then going over paperwork and signing copy after copy. After that, it was prep for the sting about to go down.
Everything that had happened since her father’s murder came down to this moment. If Mia could convince the ADA to talk, then Damien got immunity. They both got new lives. A chance at forever.
She looked up into his gray eyes as the agent adjusted her dress. It would all work out. It had to.
“All done. Are you ready?”
Mia smiled at the agent. “Can you give us a minute?”
“Sure thing.”
Damien spoke before the agent even turned around. “You don’t have to go through with it. If you’ve changed your mind—”
“I haven’t.”
His hands ran through her hair and Mia smiled. In a few hours, it would all be over. They could be like this, just the two of them, together.
“If anything happens, I want you to know that I wouldn’t trade the last month for anything.”
“Not even a spa vacation?”
“Definitely not. Have you seen the women that go to those things? I’d probably come back with enough Botox to freeze my eyelids open.”
Damien laughed. “I’m worried about you.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“You better. Because if anything goes wrong in there…”
“You’ll be busting down doors and taking out agents. I know.”
“It’s time to go, Ms. Davenport.” Agent Clausen’s voice made Mia jump.
“Be careful.” Damien bent down and captured her lips. He tasted like cinnamon and coffee and Mia wished they could click their heels and fly away from everything. If only they could be two ordinary people you passed on the street.
With any luck, they would be, soon.
She pulled back. “I’m ready.”
The agent took her by the arm. “As soon as we have enough, our team will extract you. Until then, keep him talking.”
Mia nodded.
“If you think you’re in grave danger, just say Massachusetts. We’ll send them in.”
“All right.” She closed her eyes and gave herself a mini pep talk. It wasn’t debate or mock trial, but Mia could handle it. She just had to pretend it wasn’t life or death.
The van pulled up two blocks from the bar Steven had insisted on meeting at. The place was probably swarming with Marcelo’s men. But it didn’t matter. Mia would get him to talk. Once you got men like him going, they couldn’t help themselves.
She paused in front of the door and smoothed the front of her dress. The black fabric hugged her body and showed off all her curves. She hoped it would be enough. The door opened and two men in suits walked out. Mia slipped in as it swung shut. Showtime.
The place was one of those upscale joints her father loved. All wood paneling and masculinity, just like his office. Dim lighting and ever-present wait staff ready to make men of semi-importance feel ten feet tall.
Mia spotted the ADA in a booth at the back. The burgundy leather seat hugged the wall and as Mia stepped closer, she counted three heads turn in her direction. She was right. He’d brought company.
She slid into the booth. “Thank you for meeting me, Steven.”
He took a long, slow sip of his scotch before answering. “I should be handing you over to Marcelo. The man would love to make an example out of you.”
“Why aren’t you?”
“I want to know what you’re after first.”
Mia swallowed. Here goes nothing. “I’ve had a change of heart. Damien’s…” She reached up to touch the bruise purpling below her eye. The FBI had some good makeup artists, but Steven didn’t know that. “He’s not the man I thought he was.”
“So you’re what? Here to beg forgiveness?”
She looked up at him with wide eyes she hoped said innocence. “I’m here for a job.”
The ADA laughed. “What would you need with a job? You’ve got all your father’s money.”
“That’s the thing. There wasn’t any.”
“Excuse me?”
“Everything is gone. My father spent it all.”
“On what?”
“The house, cars, women.” Mia let her lower lip tremble. “There isn’t even enough left for my tuition next year. All that I’ve worked for…Without a job I can’t hope to finish law school.”
Steven leaned back in the booth. “No job at the DA’s office will cover your tuition, you know that.”
Here we go. “I’m not here for a job in the office, Steven. I want something more…lucrative.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
Damn him. She picked up her napkin and twisted it around in her hands. “Damien told me how much money one of Marcelo’s girls could bring in and you seem so well connected. I just thought…maybe you could help me find something not too terrible that I could do.”
Steven slid closer. His dark eyes sparkled in the bar’s light. “Are you asking me to be your pimp?”
“You are close to Marcelo, right?”
“Of course I am. It doesn’t get closer.” He reached out and touched her arm. She tried not to jump. “But what makes you think I’m interested in helping you?”
She batted her lashes. “If you help me, I can still work with you on the Innocence Project. I’ll help you get the people you want out of prison. Once I get my law degree, I can come work in the DA’s office.”
His fingers lingered on her shoulder blade. “What happened to your sense of justice?”
“I’m desperate.” She reached up and put her hand on his chest. “Please, Steven. I need you to help me.”
Mia saw the doubt in his eyes. Shit. She reached for her clutch and pulled out Melanie’s locket. “Here, I stole this for you before I ran away from Damien. I thought you might want it.”
The ADA plucked the locket from her fingers and opened it. He stared at the faded picture of the woman he murdered and a smile played on his lips. “You know, women are all the same. You get them in a bind and they’ll offer you anything to get out of it.”
He snapped it shut. “You’re just like her. When I was standing there with the drugs in my hand, she was begging me for them, clawing at me with her broken fingernails like a starving dog.”
“Why didn’t you help her?”
“Because she was going to ruin everything! Your father was in so deep with Marcelo he would have brought the whole office down. I couldn’t risk my career because your old man was sloppy. I needed to take her out and make sure she wouldn’t talk. Otherwise, I’d never become District Attorney.”
“So you gave her enough drugs to overdose?”
“I gave her exactly what she asked for. A hit of heroin. She didn’t know it was laced with fentanyl.”
That has to be enough. Mia forced her eyes back up. Steven was evil. Pure evil and greed. Sweat trickled down her back, and s
he counted to ten, but the door didn’t open.
She pressed on. “You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”
He snapped his attention back to her face. “Only if I had reason to. Tell me, where is that boyfriend of yours?”
“I don’t know. It’s like I said on the phone, after the warehouse, he changed. He’s not the man he pretended to be. I—I couldn’t let him hurt me again. I ran away while he slept.”
Steven reached up and grabbed her by the jaw. He twisted her face to get a closer look at the bruise. “What makes you think I’m not worse?” His grip tightened and Mia struggled to breathe.
“You’re about to be the District Attorney.” She choked on the words. “You’re so powerful and important now. With Marcelo supporting you, you’re unstoppable.”
He let her go and she gulped in a mouthful of air.
“I used to think you were different. When you turned me down at your father’s party, you earned my respect. Now…you’re no better than that snitching whore.”
Mia swallowed. She had to get him to implicate Marcelo. It must be what they were waiting for. She licked at her lips. “Damien opened my eyes to a lot of things. I get it now. The world isn’t black and white. There are no good guys and bad guys. We’re all just treading water, trying to survive.”
She clutched at his arm. “Please, Steven. You’ve got to help me. You can talk to Marcelo.”
“That doesn’t mean I can ask him for a favor. Marcelo is a dangerous man, Mia. He’s not someone to be trifled with. You should know.”
“What if…What if I gave him Damien?”
“You said you ran away.”
“I still know where he is.” She swallowed down the disgust in her throat. “Marcelo’s bankrolling your election, right?”
“You know he is. Without him, that bitch from the public defender’s office would be a shoe-in.”
“Then use Damien as a thank you. You hand Damien over after you win the election.”
“How does that help you?”
“In the meantime, I can…earn my tuition.”
Steven closed in on her until her back hit the upholstered leather behind her. “Marcelo would use you up and spit you out in a week.” He glanced down at her trembling belly. “And what about that precious bundle of joy you’re carrying?”
“I lied. I wanted to get out of there. I thought you were going to kill me.”
“Tell me why I shouldn’t.”
“I’m the only one who can tell you where Damien is.”
“Not good enough.”
Mia swallowed. “If you pay for my tuition, I’ll be yours. Anything you want, I’ll do it.”
He leaned back and took a long, slow look at her. Mia held her breath.
“You be my girlfriend in public, I get to parade you around, show off the dead DA’s daughter on my arm…”
“Anything.”
“And at night…” He paused as his gaze raked over her body. “You do whatever I tell you, with whomever I tell you to do it.”
“What about Marcelo?”
“Marcelo might be rigging the election and I might be helping get his underlings out of jail, but he doesn’t own me.” Steven reached out and palmed her breast. “Not like I’m going to own you.”
Fear rose in Mia’s throat as Steven groped her. His hand crushed her breast and his fingers mashed the wire into her chest. Oh my God, he’s going to find it.
As he squeezed, his brow furrowed.
Mia tried to scoot back, but there was nowhere to go.
Realization washed over his face and Steven screamed. “You bitch!”
He grabbed her dress by the fistfuls. The fabric tore and Mia shouted at the top of her lungs. “Massachusetts!”
His hands were all over her, groping and scratching and tearing at her clothes. Her dress ripped straight down the middle and his fingers dug into her bra.
No! Ma swung her arms and kicked out under the table. But he had boxed her into the booth. She was wedged so tight against the leather she couldn’t get leverage.
“Massachusetts!” Mia screamed again as Steven twisted her bra in his hands. The black fabric gave way and her breasts popped free, bouncing in the air along with the wire.
“I’m going to kill you for this!” The Assistant District Attorney lunged for her throat as the front door to the bar crashed open.
“Everyone freeze and put your hands in the air. This is an FBI raid. If you move, you get shot!”
Steven froze long enough for Mia to shove him back. He lunged toward her again when another agent bellowed. “This is Special Agent Andrew Clausen with the FBI. I will shoot you, Mr. Willows. Put your hands up.”
At last, the ADA’s hands inched into the air. Another agent rushed forward and dragged Mia out of the booth as more agents swarmed in.
Four men were on the ground with FBI decked out in head-to-toe swat gear kneeling on their backs.
Half a dozen agents rushed the ADA and pinned him to the booth.
Mia clutched at her dress, pulling the scraps up to hide her naked breasts, as she ran out of the bar and to safety.
25
DAMIEN
His hands couldn’t wrap around her fast enough. Mia shook and trembled as the tears slipped down her face.
“It’s okay, you’re safe.” Damien kissed her hair and smoothed her back as she held the tatters of her dress over her chest. Huge, shaking sobs started deep inside her and Damien crushed her against his body.
Seeing Mia fall apart was worse than torture. “You were so brave, babe. And it’s over. They’ve got him. He can’t hurt you.”
She buried her face in his shoulder. “Th-they w-eren’t coming in…I kept trying, but they weren’t coming in…Did I get enough?” She sobbed out the words between giant gulps of air.
“I don’t know, Mia. I don’t know.” He would give anything to trade places with her. She had been so brave to walk into that restaurant all alone. To sit there and offer herself up to a man like Willows. His stomach turned just thinking about it.
Damien shrugged out of his shirt and slipped it over her head. Let the FBI get a good look at his tats and scars. He’d earned every damn one, but none compared to the pain and suffering his woman had just gone through.
The mother of his unborn child deserved to be put on a fucking pedestal, not almost killed under the FBI’s watch. Listening to her egg that bastard on made Damien almost explode.
He ran his hands through her hair, over and over in soft, gentle strokes, until an agent stopped beside them.
“We’ve got a safe house two miles from here. If you would come with us, we’ll debrief you on the way.”
Damien nodded and scooped Mia up into his arms. Carrying her into the waiting van might be overkill, but he wasn’t taking a chance with her. Not ever again.
Five hours later, an exhausted Mia snuggled up against his chest on a couch in an FBI-provided hotel room.
Her hair was still wet from the shower and her skin smelled dewy and fresh. He wanted to stay like that, just the two of them, and help her forget everything she’d been through.
The phone rang. Damn it. He answered.
“It’s Agent Clausen. Thanks to Mia’s work today, we secured a full confession from Steven Willows. He agreed to roll on Marcelo in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table.”
Damien frowned. He’d have liked to see the man put out of his misery. Prison would have to do. “And Marcelo?”
“We conducted a sting this afternoon in an attempt to apprehend him. Unfortunately, he was killed in a shootout with our agents. We have a majority of his employees in custody. The rest are being tracked down.”
“So it’s over?”
“The judge signed off on your immunity agreements. You are both in the clear for any prosecutions.”
Damien exhaled. It was more than he’d dared to hope for.
“You’ll need to testify against Willows in a few months when he stands trial, but our
office is working with the Federal Marshals to secure your new identities.”
“Thank you, Agent Clausen.”
The agent paused. “How is she?”
Damien glanced down at the woman who’d changed his whole world. “She’ll be fine.”
“Good. We’ll be in touch tomorrow. Enjoy your night.”
Damien ended the call and wrapped his arms around Mia. “It’s all over. Marcelo is dead. The ADA gave him up in exchange for the feds not pursuing the death penalty.”
Mia sat up. “What about us?”
Damien smiled. “Full immunity.” He reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Thanks to you, I’m no longer a wanted man.”
“You should be thanking Melanie. She’s the one who made it possible.”
Damien glanced at the locket lying on the side table. An agent had recovered it from the scene and delivered it that afternoon. He hadn’t put a bullet in Willows’ head, but he’d done better. With Mia, they had managed to take down the man his sister had been after so many years ago.
It wouldn’t bring her back, but it meant she died for something worthwhile. He closed his eyes and saw her warm smile back when they were young, before the world snuffed it out.
With a jagged exhale, he turned his attention back to the present.
Even with scrapes and bruises and dark circles under her eyes, Mia was the most beautiful woman in the world. “I might not be the man you thought you’d end up with, but I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for my past, Mia.”
She shook her head. “The past made you who you are. You don’t have any making up to do.” She reached out and traced an edge of the tattoo on his arm with her finger. “I want you just the way you are.”
He’d never said the words to anyone. Not even Melanie. When they were kids it had seemed silly, when they were older, it was too late. Damien waited until her brown eyes found his.
“I love you, Mia.”
“I love you, too, Damien.”
He slid off the couch and kneeled at her feet. “I don’t have a ring or a threshold to carry you over, but I want to spend the rest of my life with you and our baby.” Damien reached for Mia’s hand and wrapped his own battered fingers around it.
